Bliss Needs Your Support

This is going to be the most open post i will have written to date, but it is so important to me and such a massive part of my life that it would be wrong not too speak about it at all.

This post is dedicated to Bliss Charity and will hopefully raise some awareness to their new Bliss Billboards campaign! For those of you on Twitter you can find them @Blisscharity or visit their website at www.bliss.org.uk



For those who have never heard of Bliss, they are an established charity who are dedicated to researching and improving the survival and long-term quality of life for babies born too soon, too small or too sick to cope on their own. The work they do is amazing and is something i have actively followed and been as involved with as possible over the last few years. When i was 19 i suffered the loss of a child through an unexpected early labour and the effects were devastating. I have and will never get over the experience and my little one is always in my heart and thoughts. It would have been so wonderful to have known about a supportive charity such as Bliss at the time and it is simply because of this reason that i want to push awareness for them and support them as much as possible in the hope that they can make a difference to others in the future.

Their new billboard campaign is a vibrant and fun way to get involved. They are simply calling for parents to get involved and design billboards rather than an ad agency - after all what to ad agencies know about parenting compared to you actual lovely parents!!! All you need to do to get involved is to visit www.blissbillboards.com and follow the instructions from there!

I really hope you can all try to spread the word about this fantastic and worthy charity or get involved in any way you can!

xxx

Photos used are courtesy of Bliss.org.uk

Feminine & Fabulous!!!

One of my biggest inspirations to start writing my blog was a lovely lady called Lottie. This woman is brilliant! She is feminine, determined and i think she might one day take over the world! :-) For those on Twitter you can find her @LottieLoves1 and for everyone else please check out her fabulous blog and i highly recommend starting with this fantastic campaign - Feminine & Fabulous - which i think all us girlies (and some boys if you'd like!) should be getting involved in! Click on the Think Frock link on the left to be taken through to her wonderful blog.

So to complete my first assignment set by the gorgeous Lottie i want to tell the world that i love my randomly placed freckles! They are what makes me, well, me! I didn't choose where they are, yet noone else can imitate them - they are mine! I have matching ones on each hand just below my thumb - these are probably my favourites as they are symetrical! I also love the 3 which have decided to place themselves in a row on the top of my left arm! They are small, they are cute and make me unique from everyone else.

So there we have it, i love my freckles! I really hope everyone who reads this will check out Lotties new campaign and whether you choose to get involved or just prefer to stay as a silent watcher, i hope that you get something from it, just like i know i will.
xxx

What am i trying to buy??

Ok so this weekend - pay weekend of course! - i have shocked even myself with the amount of splurging i have participated in over the last 5 days. Yesterday it finally hit me that in these 5 days i have purchased 11 new items of clothing/accessories! 11!!!!!!!!!!! it started innocently enough, "Oooh i do need a maxi dress for my upcoming holiday" (heading to an muslim orientated country, i will need to cover up!) Shortly followed by "Well, brown sandals would be a good summer essential and would look lovely with the new dress" which, after 9 more of these justified comments, led to my extravagant purchasing!

Some of you may be thinking, so you spoiled yourself this month, you indulged a little! Who cares?!!? Whilst that statement is true - you should be reminded that i am going on holiday AND moving house this month and the sensible, grown up girl inside me should know better!

My point to all this spending rambling, is did i neeed any of this stuff?? Yes the original maxi dress is a good buy for my upcoming holiday but i have a wardrobe so full of dresses i can fit no more in, so i'm sure other's would have been perfectly sufficient! Of course i love my new purchases and will wear/use them so much over the next few weeks - this fact i'm not denying! In fact, it is this love of all my new items that stops the guilty feeling creeping over me and consuming me entirely!!! Yet, it still manages to creep in that little bit to say, why did you really need all these things?? Am i really so shallow that i see something shiny and new and just HAVE to have it??! What am i really trying to buy??

Am i trying to buy things to fill some sort of subconcious void in my life? Or am i just completely sucked in by the commercial advertising of labels and fashion! Fashion is a huge part of me, i love it and spend most of time dreaming about it, reading about it, trying to be in the buzz about it!

When i was growing up and we were short on cash, i couldn't have the latest gear that all my "comfortably well off" friends had! Clothes were a luxury, something i could receive on birthdays or christmas - not when the latest craze turned to designer P.E kits instead of the standard school uniformed one! Don't get me wrong, i was never in tatters - my clothes always fit and were clean and kept me warm - but they just werent always as up to date as other's may have been. One thing that sticks in my mind is reading a text on a so called friends phone when i was about 14. She was literally apologising for the way i looked to her latest boy of the week! Reading it really hurt and i've never forgotten. Not only was this person meant to be my friend so should be appreciating me for who i am, not what i wore! She also felt the need to explain me to someone i barely knew or cared about! I remember feeling embarrassed, ashamed and hurt and knew that i never wanted to have people be embarrassed of me ever again.

Now that i'm all grown up, looking back, i know that stupid child stuff doesnt really matter - it has no impact on me as a person now! However, that moment is always in the back of my mind - this is why i think i used to need all the pretty things that i see, whether i could afford them all or not! I happily admit i wanted all these things because they are pretty! Girls i'm not in anyway arguing that shopping is the demon of us! I love shopping! It's up there with chocolate, sex, cocktails, kittens and sunny days! Pretty things draw me in, i'm abit like a magpie in that respect! Yet i have to understand about myself that i will always want things i dont necessarily need, and i will wonder if it is because of that horrid memory or perhaps because i am just a materialistic person!

These thoughts will always occasionally pass through my mind - it's the guilt inside of me! I should be better with my money, save some or buy more food rather than jewellery! However, i do know deep inside me that i like buying things! It's because looking good is important to me, not to please others but to feel special about who i am! I'm not materialistic, i know that my family, friends and personal memories are far more important to me than a polka dot skirt or a pink pearl bracelet! I may not always get the things that i want and i'm ok with that! A day will come in the future when i will have to provide for my family before myself, but until that time i am going to enjoy the gorgeous items that make me feel good!

xxx